Devices as specified above are known, which adopt the focus scanning technique, which provides to take a plurality of images with the same optoelectronic device, by varying, for each image, the focal position of the optics associated to the device by a known pitch along the focal axis.
This set of images is subsequently re-processed via software to identify, for each image, only the in-focus image portion, so as to compose a three-dimensional relief of the examined surface associating, to each planar coordinate, a quote and a corresponding chromatic piece of information.
Such relief results then from the proper re-composition of the in-focus portions of all taken images by associating to each one thereof the quote which is determined by the focal position of the corresponding in-focus portion.
The known devices use supporting frames, known as stands from microscopy, for the positioning of the properly said optoelectronic device, also providing a plane base provided ad hoc or constituted by the same table or plane thereon the instrument is rested. This base constitutes the sample-bearing support which is lightened directly by a light source. Said optoelectronic device is then connected to a driving electronic module, in turn connected to a PC, or to a console dedicated to the instrument control and to the digital processing of the acquired images.
Therefore, the existing microscopes with focus scanning are substantially fixed instruments and they are not conceived as portable devices for the use thereof on field.
This limits the applicability thereof, in particular in fields such as the medical one, the archaeological one, the preservative restoration, the investigating examinations, the quality controls of an industrial process, the jewellery, the authentication and traceability of quality products and cultural goods, the opposition to counterfeiting and to the illicit trafficking of the same and so on, wherein the fact of not moving the investigated object from the site where it is located is necessary or however of primary significance.
On this matter, one thinks, for example, about a skin defect, a picture surface, a manufacturing surface defect, the recognition of trademarks and working traces in the authentication of metallic manufactured goods, an investigating evidence or others.
The US patent application Nr. US2011/134234 of 9 Jun. 2011 relates to a portable electronic microscope, but not of the type with focus scanning, wherein the optical group is moved manually and wherein the lightning is of the diffusing type, but produced by a light crown with a plane surface substantially parallel to the surface wherein the sample lies.
The Japanese patent application Nr. JP 2011/017784 of 27 Jan. 2011 relates, instead, to a microscope with extended samples with an optical group mounted on guides, in order to vary the optics position from the sample plane.
The US patent Nr. U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,296 of 17 Mar. 1987 relates to a conventional microscope wherein an optical group is mobile thanks to a translation mechanism with spiral cam.
The US patent application Nr. US 2006/077536 of 13 Apr. 2006, at last, relates to a confocal microscopy device with a complex positioning frame.
The technical problem underlying the present invention is to provide a microscopy optoelectronic device which can be used in a portable way, set free from laboratory apparatuses, by obviating the mentioned drawbacks with reference to the known art and by adopting the focus scanning technique.